Production

• 1834 patent for reaper by Cyrus McCormick
• 1848 Chicago factory, like John Deere in Moline
• mass production, specialized labor, $115 price for $65 cost
• sales agents, dealerships, credit
• by 1865, 3/4 of all farms 100+ acres had reaper
• harvesters for "bonanza farms" of the Plains

Processing

• Minnesota territory (1849) and state (1858), but winters killed soft white winter wheat - read spring wheat from better but hard
• Cadwallader Washburn built water power mill at Falls of St. Anthony for the Minneapolis Mill Co. of 1856, hired manager George Christian
• 1856 Dauglish patent for carbonic acid method of con't process
• 1871 middlings purifier of Edmund La Croix - air blew bran out sieves
• flour dust explosion 1878 caused new mill design by William de la Barre from Austria with inventions seen at Philadelphia Centennial: ventilator of Gustav Behrn, Hungarian rollers improved with steel
• "patent flour" won gold medal at 1880 Millers' International Exposition in Cincinnati - Washburn changed label to "Gold Medal Flour"
• would merge in 1926 with Austin Sperry and Horace Davis mills in Calif

Marketing

• river town warehouse owners bought wheat from local farmers until RR
• railroads built elevators but mixed grades of wheat, charged farmers high hauling rates and paid farmers low prices during harvest season
• Minneapolis Millers Association 1869 - pool of 18 buyers able to deal with railroads, send sales agents abroad, buy futures in Chicago BT
• millers became middlemen between farmer and consumer
• advertising, trademarks, Betty Crocker since 1921
• Big 3: Kellogg, General Mills, Post